Field of the Invention
Invention pertains to preparing nutritional supplements from green leafy vegetation. More particularly it pertains to preparing easily consumable or palatable synergistic compositions of a nutritional supplements from green leafy vegetables.
Description of the Prior Art
A person shall remain in a healthy state if he consumes all the essential nutrients every day through food. The nutrients considered as “Essential” are those that are not synthesized in human body and must be consumed through food. They, however, come from diverse food sources, are most of the times associated with other desired or undesired constituents such as water and most of such sources are perishable too. Availability of such food sources may also fluctuate with seasons, market conditions and location. Under practical circumstances, it is often difficult to manage food sources that fulfill that person's ideal daily nutritional needs.
Due to urbanization, the food consumption pattern itself has undergone a material change generating nutritional imbalances. In recent understanding of genesis of diseases, the nutritional imbalances themselves have been perceived to trigger inflammatory responses from the body or oxidative damages which in turn result into several lifestyle related diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases, hypercholesterolemia, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, hypertension, acidity etc. In addition to life threatening diseases, life quality threatening diseases/disorders are on a rise which include gastrointestinal disorders/diseases arising from low fiber diets such as constipation, colon cancer, etc. Further, deficiency related disorders such as anemia, vitamin D deficiency, calcium loss and bone mass loss, age related macular degeneration are also on rise. Disorders like anxiety, depression, Alzheimer's syndrome, Parkinson's disease etc and other related psychotropic diseases, are also increasingly been perceived to be amenable to modulation to varying extent by nutritional intervention.
Even infectious diseases that are prima facie ascribed to infections from pathogens may in many cases be traceable to increased susceptibility of the victim to that infection on account of lowering of immunity or resistance which may be due to debility arising from deficiency of one or more essential nutrients or inflammation.
Nutritional supplements have emerged as a means to bridge up the gap between nutrients consumed through the every day intake of staple food eaten conventionally throughout the day and their recommended intake per day.
Most of the nutritional supplements are predominantly based on fortified cereals, milk protein, soya protein concentrate, with or without further supplementation by inorganic minerals and synthetic vitamins. It is now realized that many sources of synthetic vitamins are not used by the body with same efficiency as natural sources of the same; viz. Natural Beta-carotene and alpha-tocopherol as compared to their synthetic or isolated counterparts. Realization is also growing that minerals associated with natural products are more efficiently absorbed and more efficiently utilized than the same minerals administered as inorganic salt supplements.
Further, in addition to what is supplied by above nutritional supplements, a major lacuna still exists in the context of the nutrients supplied by green leafy vegetables/vegetation. Most of the nutrients contained in the green leaves provided by one 100 gram serving have to come through green leafy vegetation only, the group of nutrients available in green leafy vegetation is simply not available in any single alternative conventional food source; several other natural sources will have to be eaten collectively and simultaneously to get the same group of nutrients at the same time every day, which is practically difficult to achieve on a regular basis and they will have to be consumed in a quantity that can not be practically consumed. An illustrative list of such nutrients available through green leaves includes: chlorophylls, carotenes, xanthophylls, alpha tocopherols, phytosterols, highly bio-available calcium and iron, vitamin K, folic acid, poly unsaturated fatty acids containing the omega-3-alpha linolenic acid and importantly, also, high biological value dietary protein and dietary fiber. All these nutritional ingredients are individually very important part of nutritional requirements and some of them are likely to establish themselves as therapeutically effective to prevent or treat various diseases or disorders. It is for this very reason that despite consumption of dietary nutritional supplements made from Soya proteins, whey proteins, milk proteins etc., nutritionists recommend consumption of green leafy vegetables of about 150 gm with lunch and dinner to ensure that the nutrients consumed through food and other supplements be made more effective.
It is a matter of fact that the recommended consumption of green leafy vegetables is possible with a regularity to a very few people.
It becomes clear that to achieve a completeness in supplementation of the daily diet with nutritional supplements, a viable alternative nutritional supplement to fulfill the vital nutrients provided by a portion of 100 to 150 gram of green leafy vegetables in every meal is an important necessity.